TMC abol­ishes V-P post, Mukul in lurch

In a se­vere blow to its Ra­jya Sabha MP Mukul Roy, the Tri­na­mul Congress has abol­ished the vice pres­i­dent’s post, which he used to hold, from the party’s or­gan­i­sa­tion.

The move has vir­tu­ally now left him with­out any po­si­tion and has cor­nered him in the party amidst strong spec­u­la­tion about him join­ing the BJP along with an­other Ra­jya Sabha par­lia­men­tar­ian, Ritabrata Banerjee, who was ex­pelled from the CPI(M) re­cently. It came close on the heels of a whiff about Mr Roy’s failed at­tempt to de­fect to the BJP with more than three dozen Tri­na­mul lead­ers in­clud­ing MPs and MLAs, sources in­di­cated. Ac­cord­ing to Tri­ma­mul in­sid­ers, the party’s de­ci­sion is bound to weaken Mr Roy who was once known for his or­gan­i­sa­tional skills and his close rap­port chief min­is­ter Ma­mata Banerjee.

Mr Roy was ear­lier de­moted in the party’s or­gan­i­sa­tion fol­low­ing his ac­ri­mony with the Tri­na­mul Congress supremo.